When the president walks into Bonelli Park today and designates the San Gabriel Mountains the nation’s newest national monument, that won’t end the debate over whether it is good thing or a bad thing.

In fact, questions over process, effects, funding and access continued to swirl around the designation on the eve of President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated and historic visit.

Because the 346,000 acres in the monument stretch from Castaic to the Los Angeles/San Bernardino County border and is part of the Angeles National Forest — a playground for 19 million Southern California residents — this national monument will not be as easily defined as others, which are more remote and single-faceted.

Will it bring more dollars?

The question of whether a national monument will bring more funding is still up in the air.

Supporters answer yes, while detractors say no.

John Monsen, a former Sierra Club staffer who worked on the San Gabriel Mountains proposal since 2003 and has studied other national monuments, said the president’s imprimatur means more money.

Today, the U.S. Forest Service receives funding for forests in the west, but not specifically for the Angeles National Forest, which experiences up to 3 million visitors a year and is jammed with trash, graffiti and rusted-out signs.

A San Gabriel Mountains National Monument means a line item in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Forest Service budget, he said, something the area does not have as a national forest.

“There is much more of a chance at getting funds,” he said. “The administration will do what it can to get us more resources.”

Mike Rogers, the former supervisor of the Angeles National Forest from 1990 to 2000, doesn’t buy it.

“There is no assurance it will bring extra resources or money,” he said Thursday. “The bottom line is the country is bankrupt. There is no tree with money on it.”

“It doesn’t take a change of uniform color and additional rules and regulations. It takes a proper budget,” he wrote in a statement. Wetherby, who owns a cabin on the West Fork of the San Gabriel River in the forest, continues to lobby Congress for more funding. He says the U.S. Forest Service’s budget for the entire nearly 700,000 acres of the Angeles of about $12 million a year is inadequate.

Members of the group San Gabriel Mountains Forever not only disagree, they are making plans to form public-private partnerships with nonprofit groups to raise money for maintenance and better signs.

San Dimas City Councilman Denis Bertone, who in the 1990s successfully fought to keep development out of Bonelli Park, said he sees no downside to the monument designation.

“I’ve looked at different national monuments and all of them, after they were declared, received additional resources,” he said.

What about the process?

Some elected officials question whether a presidential decree is proper.

This objection calls for some explanation:

The idea of setting aside the San Gabriel Mountains began as a bill in 2003 by then Rep. Hilda Solis, now a Los Angeles County supervisor-elect. The U.S. National Park Service study found the area had a unique ecology, endangered species such as the Santa Ana sucker fish and the mountain yellow-legged frog, as well as historical aspects that include the Mt. Wilson Observatory where scientists first discovered the universe is expanding.

When Solis left office, the effort was transferred to Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena. She and the National Park Service held hearings in 2012 and 2013 and met with numerous groups to gain support. In June, Chu introduced a bill to create the San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area, an idea that is similar to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Under the SMMNRA, different cities, the county, the state and the federal government all own lands and work together to provide hiking, mountain biking and educational programs. Wildlife biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey also work there, studying the mountain lions and bobcat populations, for example.

But when Chu’s bill stalled in Congress, she asked President Obama to designate a smaller portion of the local mountains — just the federal land within this smaller portion of the Angeles National Forest — as a national monument using the Antiquities Act.

“This is a bypass of the democratic process. It is being rushed with no public input or study,” said Glendora City Councilwoman Judy Nelson.

Mark Yelton, store owner at Camp Williams, a privately owned spot along the east fork of the San Gabriel River with about 80 residents, said he has not received any information from the U.S. Forest Service or Chu’s office. He is unsure what kind of changes to expect.

“I say nothing will happen fast. Time will tell. But I’d like to hear from somebody and help clear up the misinformation,” Yelton said.

What will change?

Chu has said no recreational uses will change. The designation would prohibit new mining claims, Bertone said, but that would be the only restriction as compared to current regulations.

Those who have said panning for gold, riding a mountain bike, fishing, hunting or hiking will be prohibited are misinformed, said Daniel Rossman, chairman of San Gabriel Mountains Forever, a group of businesses, clergy and environmental groups working for nearly a decade on both the NRA and now, the national monument designation.

“We will see better-maintained trails and signs in multiple languages,” he said.

Some worry that the U.S. Forest Service would charge to enter the forest, in addition to the existing Adventure Pass Program which costs $5 per day or $30 a year.

“All of those fears are not founded,” he said.

The Antiquities Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, does not require that national monuments charge fees. Many say it would be too difficult to charge fees upon entrance to such a vast monument.

As to a presidential designation instead of a bill working its way through Congress, Rossman said: “Congress gave the president the authority in 1906. We’ve seen Democratic and Republican presidents use this tool.”

The San Gabriel Mountains National Monument will be the 11th new monument designated by this president and the 13th proclamation (two were extensions of existing national monuments).

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.

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